Rapist will stay free because of dementia

A serial rapist who kept one of his teenage victims as a sex slave in a remote bush hut is expected to walk free from court because he has developed mild dementia.

Court delays, including more than two years elapsing since he was first charged with abduction and rape, have also contributed to what one of his victims says is the justice system failing them.

A judge has accepted the man committed what amounted to hundreds of rapes involving four women – some aged as young as 15.

But he is expected to walk free on the charges when he appears in court next month. He is also seeking permanent name suppression.

The dragged-out court process has appalled one of his victims, who was 19 when she was lured to a remote part of the North Island and kept as a sex slave for five months.

She said the public should know who the 79-year-old is.

‘‘I was repeatedly terrorised with threats of torture, forced abortion with wire, starvation, being eaten alive by pigs, death and death to any babies born to me,’’ she told Fairfax Media.

She became pregnant to the man and in her statement to police she described the pregnancy ending violently as she was being raped.

Suppression orders mean Fairfax Media cannot reveal specific details of the woman’s ordeal, including dates and where the offending took place.

The woman was the first to complain to police, in September 2008. Three more victims subsequently came forward.

She wants her own name suppression lifted – and she and the other victims want the man’s name suppression lifted so the public knows what he did.

He was originally charged in December 2009 with four charges or rape, one of unlawful sexual connection and one of abduction.

The charges increased in 2010 to 14, including a representative charge covering hundreds of rapes, and further charges were later laid as more complainants were spoken to. So far he has made 27 court appearances and until the last two was deemed fit to stand trial.

However his lawyers obtained reports from a psychiatrist and a psychologist saying he has developed mild dementia and is now not fit to be tried.

A judge has accepted the medical opinions after the Crown also obtained reports from a psychiatrist and psychologist.

The woman was 19 when she went to work for the man in an isolated bush hut with no neighbours and only four-wheeldrive access.

In a 60-page statement she told police 23 years later that the first sexual contact with the man was consensual, though she realised during it that ‘‘what we were doing was not right . . . I’d made a mistake. He was old. I shouldn’t have had sex with him.’’

Despite her protests, she became a sex slave as the man moved her into his bedroom, raped her almost daily at will – and told her he would kill anyone who tried to help her.

She said she was powerless, helpless and completely manipulated and feared that because of the remoteness he would easily track her down if she tried to escape.

The man forced her to do heavy labouring work and beat her when she plucked up the courage to ask him to allow her to leave. She eventually escaped using the man’s vehicle when he went bush with a visiting friend.